Common rail fuel systems supply pressurized fluid to a bank of fuel injectors from a common pressure controlled source known in the art as a common rail. In most instances, a high pressure pump directly driven by the engine supplies pressurized fluid to the common rail. Pressure in the common rail may be controlled in a variety of different ways using an electronic controller. Among these include returning metered quantities of pressurized fluid back to a low pressure storage tank to control rail pressure, as in some common rail fuel systems that utilize high pressure oil in a common rail to supply intensifying fluid to a bank of fuel injectors. Such systems are known as hydraulically actuated electronically controlled fuel systems. Another type of common rail system utilizes high pressure fuel that is directly supplied to individual fuel injectors for injection. Pressure in these types of common rail systems is often controlled at the pump utilizing either a spill control valve associated with each pump piston, or maybe a throttle inlet valve to control pump output and hence rail pressure in the common rail.
There has long been a desire in the art to detect faulty fuel system components by examining rail pressure data onboard and in real time. While there are known strategies for detecting fuel system faults by examining rail pressure data, all of these known strategies are processor intensive. Many electronic controllers for common rail fuel systems simply lack the processor capacity to simultaneously control engine operation and do the intensive processing necessary to detect a fuel system component fault by examining rail pressure data. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 7,835,852 to Williams et al. teaches detection and identification of a faulty fuel system component by performing a Fourier transform on rail pressure data and comparing that transform to a supposed Fourier transform for a normal operating system.
The present disclosure is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.